Sam Biddle

Not everyone is lucky in love, or in life. Sometimes that's just the way it is—highs and lows, ebbs and flows. But if you're striking out on OkCupid, here's an idea that will not help you at all: Crowdsourcing your romantic woes on Reddit.

Reddit is great for some things—startling videos, startling racism, celebrity Q&A, pictures of people popping cysts. But it's our job as your friends and legal counsel to tell you that asking Reddit for online dating advice is a categorically horrible idea. It's already happening right now, and the results are bad. Very bad.

Reddit is the best possible argument anyone can muster against direct democracy: a perfect cross…
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Here's a look at the panoply of bleak questions:

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Do you think you would have better luck if age were not shown?

Who has had any *actual* success on OkCupid?

Help? Women seem to drop off the face of the earth after the first date.

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There are the sorry, blisteringly insecure requests for OkCupid profile critiques, where guys link directly to their profiles and ask what's going wrong. Because nothing's more attractive than a lack of self-confidence so strong it actually bends light. It's unfortunate, because none of these people really seem to have anything wrong with them. Some are even pretty good looking! So why the compulsion to ask Reddit, of all places, with help finding true love?

The questions do turn up some great tips, such as "DO put your astrological sign in—it's a great opener." And: "DON'T use hostile language to describe the opposite sex." Sage advice.

The site has good intentions—right? But if you're at this stage of needing help, you're probably beyond the point of being helped.

Note: It's not just lonely guys posting—but they would likely figure in to the "feedback" sought by the Redditor on the left. Hmm, what possible comments could you receive from an internet hivemind filled with anonymous lovelorn men?